As Mom's world grew, so did how I saw her

by Karina Bland - Jan. 19, 2013 12:19 PMThe Republic | azcentral.com

The conference room was packed with people sitting at long tables and leaning awkwardly against the wall. There was a cake from Costco, a wood plaque wrapped in green tissue paper, and red roses in a vase.

No one likes these office send-offs, not even my mother, and this time she was the one who was leaving, retiring from the state after 15 years in her job.

When I was growing up, my mom was at home when my brother and I got off the bus from school. Always. As far as I could tell, her world included our house, school, the grocery store, the mall and Maryanne's house across the street.

Even as we got older and more of my friends were wearing house keys strung on shoe laces around their necks, she was there every afternoon, asking "How was school?" over the whoosh of the vacuum cleaner.

I curled up on the couch studying "Vocabulary for the College-Bound Student" while my mom folded laundry next to me. She did laundry so often that my dad joked that any of us could take off an outfit at night and wear it again the next day because it would be clean by morning.

My mom is from New Zealand, and she left school at 16 to learn ladies tailoring. She met my father, a Marine assigned to the American Embassy in Wellington, and married him when she was 19. A year later, my brother arrived, followed 20 months later by me.

Because we moved every two or three years, it would have been difficult for my mom to build a career, though some of the other moms did it. She says my dad figured child care would cost as much as she could make.

Honestly, I never thought about my mom in terms of a job or career. She took care of us. For as long as I could remember, she was a given, constant and there. She was a mom.

My mom.

While I planned to get married and have children someday, I was going to have a career first. The husband, the house, the kids -- and the laundry -- could wait. In that way, my mom and I were different.

When my brother and I were in high school and rarely came straight home after school anymore, my mom volunteered in an old-folks home. I looked forward to the funny stories about the residents that she told over dinner. Like how if she rattled off a list of juice choices, the residents always picked the last one because it was the one they could remember. (She shuffled the list so they would get more variety.)

And then she began taking classes at Glendale Community College: clothing and textiles, interior design. While I sat at the table doing my homework at night, she attached swatches of material to poster board and explained about color wheels. She took one class at a time and got an A in each one.

Soon my brother was gone, followed 20 months later by me, first to community college and then to Arizona State University.

I grew up believing I had unlimited career choices. My mom, on the other hand, first ventured out in search of a job at 50. She got hired as temporary help at a dress shop at Metrocenter Mall. Her next job was full time, as the receptionist at the hair salon at J.C. Penney at Chris-Town Mall.

That was the first time she had ever worked on a computer, so she enrolled in a night class and quickly became proficient. And then in 1997, my mom went to work for the state.

Meanwhile, I was moving full-speed ahead. I had chosen a major, worked on the university newspaper, graduated from college, gotten my first newspaper job and then my second.

Going to work made my mom bolder, more confident. Her circle of friends got bigger and more diverse. She was named employee of the year in her division in 2005. She walked in 5Ks for charity with her co-workers, met them for lunch on the weekends and helped organize the Christmas party for patients at the state mental hospital every year.

When my mom went to work, I started to see her as being more like me. We could talk about our jobs and understand what it was like for the other.

And then I became a mother, and I understood her early world more precisely. Our lives had synced up, even though they started from opposite points.

We still have very different natures. I am extroverted; she is quite shy. Back in the conference room at work that day, she whispered, "I hope I don't have to make a speech."

She didn't. Instead her co-workers talked about her, and their words were kind and sincere. Dedicated. Capable. Patient. Irreplaceable.

They told how she accomplished things others couldn't, and how she looked out for her co-workers. One person told about a client who always wanted to talk to my mom over anyone else.

"That's because Marilyn will solve the problem, whatever it is," another colleague explained.

And one after another, as her co-workers left the room, their words to me became a repeated refrain: "We're really going to miss your mom."

Dedicated. Capable. Patient. Irreplaceable.

I know this woman, this co-worker they were talking about. I didn't when I was younger, but I do now.